Re: RFC: Starting a stable kernel series off the 2.6 kernel

Rob Landley
2005-12-11T06:45:29Z

On Saturday 10 December 2005 11:05, Douglas McNaught wrote:
> The kernel developers owe *nothing* to J. Random User. They are
> either doing what they do for their own reasons (the "fun" of it), or
> being paid by an organization with specific objectives (even if, in
> Linus' case, the objective is just "make the best kernel possible,
> based on your judgement and that of people you trust").

That's not a good argument. I don't think Bill has a good argument either,
but this isn't one.

The kernel developers have very good reasons for what they're doing, and
ultimately they believe that what they're doing is in the best long-term
interests of the users. Bill has objections based on the short-term
interests of users. The kernel developers are saying that looking after the
short-term interests of the users is the distros' problems, while they focus
on the long-term and the big picture.

Both are doing what they believe to be in the best interests of the users.
Bill believes (and keeps uselessly repeating) that the kernel developers
should pay more attention to short-term interests. The whole "stable series"
vs "continuous development" is about short-term interests vs long-term
interests.

Overall, development of new technology (and adoption of new technology) goes
faster when it's continuous than when you have large discontinuous jumps.
You find problems faster, and you find them one at a time when it's easy to
isolate what's wrong rather than receiving three years of development in one
gulp and experiencing fifteen different failures all at once. Problems are
more frequent, but they're smaller and simpler and easier to diagnose and
easier to fix. User can _cope_ with a higher rate of change when it comes in
smaller chunks. The learning curve isn't a cliff.

> They don't owe you security fixes either.

Actually, they seem to think they do. They're quite dilligent about providing
security fixes. But the security fixes they give are part of the ongoing
development process. Separating them out and backporting them to previous
versions is your problem, and if you don't feel up to it they point you to
distributions, which will do that for you.

So there are two different ways you can get the fixes. (Upgrade, or use a
distro maintained kernel.) Some people think they're owed a third way, and
want somebody else to provide it for them.

> Your "ivory tower" statement is really condescending.

*shrug* This whole thread is basically people bitching about what other
people should do, instead of banding together and giving it a try themselves.
It started condescending. In the absence of constructive suggestions or
anyone actually doing real work rather than merely bitching about the state
of the world, I think most of the developers have written off the whiners
with a silent "sucks to be you" and moved on...

(I do hope we get the "buffer flush" dot-releases though. That would be
nice.)

Rob
--
Steve Ballmer: Innovation! Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.